Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward broke the story March 2
of "solicitor-in-chief" Al Gore dialing for dollars in the White
House. It drew major coverage -- but not from all. That evening's ABC
World News Sunday, as well as the next morning's Today show on
NBC, completely ignored Woodward. This illustrates the pattern
of reporting on the DNC fundraising scandal. Newspaper scoops
emerge nearly every day, but many were overlooked by one
network, or all of them. Anyone watching only one network
missed key parts of the emerging story.

MediaWatch analysts reviewed all February fundraising
scandal stories on the evening shows of ABC, CBS, CNN (The World Today),
and NBC, as well as the morning shows of ABC, CBS, and NBC.
The February 25 discovery of Bill Clinton ordering the
invitation of major donors to stay in the Lincoln Bedroom
caused a major increase in intensity: the networks aired as
many stories in the last four days of February as they had in
the first 24. The gritty complexities of election law were, for
the networks, much less attractive than a sexy angle expected to
"resonate" with viewers.

On the evening shows, the networks aired 50 full reports and
13 anchor briefs, but 25 of the reports and three of the
briefs came in the last four days. The eight network shows that led with
the fundraising story were all in the last four days. For a
majority of days in February, ABC (16 days), CBS (18 days), and
NBC (19 days) aired no story on the fundraising beat. Even CNN
had 12 days with no fundraising story.

The morning shows did less: 18 full reports, 11 interview
segments, and 19 anchor briefs. Again, almost half of the
coverage -- eight full reports, five interviews, and 11 anchor briefs --
came after the Lincoln Bedroom story broke. Six morning shows
led with the Lincoln Bedroom story, but only two shows led off
with the fundraising story in the previous 25 days. Not
counting the absence of Saturday morning shows on ABC and CBS,
ABC (on 15 days), CBS (16 days) and NBC (19 days) aired nothing
new on the fundraising story. A look at daily scoops shows
spotty network interest:

February 6: The Boston Globe reported "President Clinton
renewed controversial aid flights to Cuba last October on the
same day a campaign donor pressed President Clinton to
resume the flights and offered to arrange a $5 million
contribution to the President's campaign." ABC's World News
Tonight noted top aide Harold Ickes' memo to the donor, but
only CBS aired the Cuba angle.

February 7: The Globe reported Arnold Hiatt, the
DNC's largest individual donor, gave $500,000 to Democratic
Party after discussing suggestions with Ickes about how to
donate the money. The Los Angeles Times reported that of the
four Asian businessmen Clinton dined with at a July 30 meeting
which eventually raised $500,000, two could not legally donate to U.S.
campaigns. A front-page USA Today story reported internal
White House documents showed the White House Office Data Base
was used for political purposes from its inception in 1994.
The Wall Street Journal recounted the payoff for two Boston
businessmen who attended a White House coffee, getting an
exclusive energy efficiency loan program from the Department
of Housing and Urban Development. None got any coverage.

February 12: Contradicting Clinton's claims about coffees,
spokesman Mike McCurry said: "I think the President would
have wondered why he was doing all those coffees if he hadn't
had some follow-up." Only CNN's Wolf Blitzer noted the
contradiction.

February 16: The Washington Post reported that
following a Hillary Clinton visit to Guam in September 1996,
island residents raised $900,000 for the Democrats and in
December, a Clinton official circulated a report backing a
bill allowing Guam to control its immigration and labor laws.
On Meet the Press, Rep. Dan Burton announced 20 additional
subpoenas on Chinese interest in the U.S. elections. Liberal New York
Post columnist Jack Newfield quoted a Clinton adviser claiming
Clinton's "incredibly intense" demands for fundraising
"caused people to start cutting corners." The Guam story was
mentioned only on ABC's World News Sunday and NBC's Today.
Burton's subpoenas only aired on CNN, CBSThis Morning and
Today. Newfield's article came up on NBC's Meet the Press and
ABC's This Week, but it made no other TV show.

February 19: In a front-page story, USA Today's
Tom Squiteri wrote: "Top finance officials in the Democratic
Party quietly decided last July to limit John Huang's
fundraising and to end appearances by President Clinton at
Asian-American events organized by Huang." Squiteri noted this
didn't match statements last fall that officials had no idea of
Huang's improprieties. Network coverage? Zero.

February 20: The Washington Post reported that
Asian-American business association chief Rawlein Soberano
was asked by Huang to funnel more than $250,000 through his
group for a kickback of $45,000. Inside, Bob Woodward
reported a twice-convicted felon who met with Clinton at a 1995 White
House coffee attended four subsequent DNC fundraisers with
Clinton. The Wall Street Journalshowed how a Miami
businessman met twice with the National Security Council's
Latin America specialist to urge Clinton to back Paraguay's
President in a coup attempt. "The day the unsuccessful coup
attempt began," the DNC "received $100,000 from Mr. Jimenez."
Only ABC's morning and evening shows mentioned Soberano.
(NBC got around to it March 3.) The other two stories: skipped by all.

February 22: The New York Times reported "The
Manhattan District Attorney said yesterday he had given
federal prosecutors evidence that a Venezuelan banking family
might have illegally funneled campaign contributions to the
Democratic Party during the 1992 elections." Network coverage? Zero.

February 23: The Washington Post reported DNC
Chairman Don Fowler tried to routinely put large donors in
touch with the White House or cabinet officials to have their
needs met. Network coverage? Zero.

February 25: . The Los Angeles Times reported that
while the Clintons kept a public distance from former
Associate Attorney General Webster Hubbell, "a trusted White
House aide" Marsha Scott has acted as a "confidential
go-between," raising the question of White House attempts to keep
Hubbell from testifying fully. Network coverage? Nothing.

February 28: The Wall Street Journal reported
Clinton made angry calls at 1 a.m. to Democratic leaders
urging them to fight the naming of an independent counsel.
CBS and NBC evening shows mentioned it in passing. ABC and
CNN did not.

NewsBites: Biased Bias Poll

A March 2 Parade magazine cover story reported that 52
percent of the public "think the news is too biased." In which
direction? Paradedidn't say in its summary of the Roper Center
survey conducted in conjunction with the Freedom Forum's opening of its
"Newseum," a museum of media history.

But buried in the full survey results on the Newseum web
site was a sentence on how "majorities also say they have at
least some concern" for three deficiencies. The third: "That
journalists favor the liberal point of view (53%)." Why the Freedom
Forum and Parade didn't highlight this last finding becomes clear
once you look at the five options from which those polled could
select when asked "How much of the time is news reporting
improperly influenced by..." The choices: "Media desire to make
profits," "Interests of corporate media owners,"
"Advertisers," "Big business," and "Elected officials."

Cronkite's Christians

Walter Cronkite signed a direct-mail fundraising letter for
The Interfaith Alliance (TIA), a group established in 1984 to
counter "religious political extremists." Associated Press
reporter Kevin Galvin explained that in the letter sent in late
February, Cronkite "singled out the Christian Coalition's Pat
Robertson and Ralph Reed for `wrapping their harsh right wing views in
the banner of religious faith.'"

Cronkite told Galvin by telephone: "My principal thrust here
is to try to help establish that they do not speak for what I
believe is the majority of Christians in the country." Galvin
reported that in the letter Cronkite praised TIA for being "as diverse
as America" and "standing up to the Christian Coalition." The
letter urged recipients to give $50 to $500 and asked: "Will
you take a stand? Will you help TIA in saying `No' to religion
as a political cover? `No' to Pat Robertson, `No' to Ralph
Reed, `No' to Jerry Falwell?"

Washington Post reporter Howard Kurtz began a March 7 story:
"Walter Cronkite is coming out of the ideological closet."
Actually, it's not the first time he's lent his name to liberal
fundraisers. In 1988, for instance, he addressed a People for the
American Way banquet. As quoted in the December 5, 1988
Newsweek,Cronkite thundered: "I know liberalism isn't dead in the
country. It simply has, temporarily we hope, lost its voice...We know
that the real threat to democracy is the half of the nation in
poverty. We know that no one should tell a woman she has to
bear an unwanted child...God Almighty, we've got to shout these
truths in which we believe from the housetops."

Billy Who?

Billy Dale was fired from the White House travel office in
1993 amidst embezzlement charges to make room for Clinton's
Arkansas cronies. When a jury acquitted him on November 16,
1995, demonstrating the Clintons had accused him unjustly, the networks
ignored it. When he then sought repayment for his nearly half a
million dollars in legal bills, the President promised to sign
the bill. On May 2, 1996, The Washington Times reported Senate
Democrats moved in secret to block legislation reimbursing
Dale. The networks ignored that,too. So it was no surprise that
when Bill Clinton signed a bill authorizing repayment and the
government finally wired Dale's attorneys some $410,000 for his
legal fees on February 13, the networks again pretended the
story did not exist.

What Correction?

On February 15, an Arkansas newspaper splashed a story
across its front page that the Whitewater investigation was in
trouble. The story spread quickly. That night, anchor Paula Zahn
relayed the article's allegations to viewers of the CBS Evening News:
"Independent Prosecutor Kenneth Starr has reportedly hit a snag
in his Whitewater investigation. According to a report in the
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Starr has conducted four mock
trials. In each the jury acquitted both President and Mrs.
Clinton. Word is Starr will now rework his probe into the
Clintons' real estate dealings." All the networks except ABC
broadcast the story -- a total of six more times over the next
few days. Six days later, the Democrat-Gazette printed a front-page
correction headlined "Starr Staged No Mock Trial, Source Concedes."
CBS and NBC didn't tell viewers. Only CNN bothered to correct
the story.

Eternal Entitlements.

When new rules went into effect limiting to three months in
three years the time able-bodied people without children can
receive food stamps, CBS warned of impending disaster. On the
February 22 CBS Evening News Sharyl Attkisson intoned: "People who
help those on welfare see trouble ahead." Attkisson aired the fears
of Chapman Todd at the Washington D.C. Central Kitchen: "You
see a lot of people who fit that category but really have no
marketable skills." Attkisson added: "29 states and the
District of Columbia have applied for special waivers to delay
this first step in welfare reform. New York is among them, even
though its Republican Governor strongly supports the need for
drastic change." Attkisson aired a soundbite from Gov. George
Pataki but then led into a soundbite from liberal Congressman Charles
Rangel. Attkisson foreshadowed: "Critics warn this is just a
small preview of the tremendous headaches ahead as broader
welfare reforms take hold."

Two weeks later on the March 9 Evening News, Zahn wondered
if Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer's supposedly successful downtown
revitalization would be affected by welfare reform. "Given the
fact that cities and states are going to have to absorb more
of the welfare burden, could that potentially derail some of the
progress you have made in downtown Detroit?" Zahn's been in a panic
since Clinton agreed to welfare reform. Last August 1 she
ominoulsly intoned: "There is already is a great deal of fear
and anxiety all over the country over the impact it will have."

Pentagon-Bashing Syndrome

In the March Reason, science writer Michael Fumento
lambasted the media's shoddy Gulf War Syndrome coverage.
Several studies, such as an October 1996 Institute of Medicine report,
found there was "no available evidence in human or animal
studies to date that exposure to nerve agents at low
levels...results in any chronic or long-term adverse health
effects." The networks didn't cover it, but Fumento found that
"incredible accounts of such symptoms as skin-blistering semen
and glowing vomit are taken as gospel."

Fumento explained the grab-bag nature of "Gulf War
Syndrome," a laundry list of self-diagnosed symptoms including
"hair loss, graying hair, weight gain, weight loss." The wackiest
symptoms came from Private Brian Martin, who told a congressional
panel that he vomited "[glow-in-the-dark] Chemlite-looking
fluids every time I ran." But such statements didn't hurt his
credibility with Ed Bradley, who used him as a main source for
his August 25 60 Minutes story on possible troop exposure to
nerve gas at Khamisiyah, Iraq. The glowing vomit was left out.

Martin told Bradley that when the bunker at Khamisiyah
exploded and chemical alarms went off, the soldiers not only
didn't put on their protective gear, they didn't even have access
to them. Bradley said Sgt. Dan Topalski "put his suit on right away.
Others did not. He is the only man in the group who is not
sick." But Fumento talked to the five other vets who appeared
in the 60 Minutes segment, and they said every soldier at
Khamisiyah was fully suited, and one vet told Fumento that he
made that clear to Bradley. Recently on the February 20 CBS
Evening News, reporter David Martin repeated the error: "The
troops did not bother to put on their chemical protection gear."

Welcome to the Greenhouse

Bitter Cold. Heat waves. Torrential rain. Dusty drought.
Melting ice caps. These disparate conditions mean one thing to
reporters: global warming. Whenever the weather's quirky, the
media drag out global warming scare stories. On February 6, Dan Rather
introduced a CBS Evening News piece on biting winter weather in
the Great Plains: "In tonight's Eye on America, a hard news
report about the wild weather including dangerous and in some
cases deadly climate extremes and changing patterns...This
video, fresh from Antarctica, shows deep cracks in the ice
shelf. You can see how deep and how big at ground level. You
can also see the melting that some environmentalists say is a
danger sign of global warming."

On the February 26 Dateline NBC, prompted by Midwest
flooding, science reporter Robert Bazell warned: "What's
happening to the weather? Is something going wrong with the weather? Are
we changing the weather? The problem, and most of the world's
experts now agree there is a problem, is simply this: we burn
things....We are in fact a civilization built on burning. As
those gases build up in our skies, they begin to trap and hold
in more of the Sun's heat, the way a greenhouse does. The
result, say most scientists, a gradual warming of the planet."
Competitive Enterprise Institute President Fred Smith, in the
CEI Update, disgreed that warming is occurring and refuted the dire
prognosis if it were: "The balance of evidence suggests that a
warmer world will be a cloudier world, with most of the warming
occurring at night, moderating nighttime lows. Also, the
increased cloudiness will be greatest in the summer, least in
the winter, further reducing temperature variations across the
seasons. In effect, the most likely impact of warming -- should
it occur -- would be a more benign climate, not a more hostile
one."

The BBA Blame Game

In the 104th Congress, the balanced budget amendment failed
by one vote. When Republicans added two seats to their Senate
majority in 1996, it would seem that the amendment would have
no trouble passing, especially since four freshmen Democrats
supported the amendment during the campaign. When Senators Tim Johnson
and Robert Torricelli announced their opposition to the
amendment, ABC didn't find a story of dishonest Democrats or
misled voters, but a story of ineffective Republicans.

On the February 26 World News Tonight, ABC's John Cochran
began: "Republicans knew from the start they needed the votes
of at least three of the four freshmen Democrats who during the
election campaign said they supported a constitutional amendment to
outlaw budget deficits." Cochran ended the piece: "Torricelli's
decision leaves Republicans still unable to produce on two of
the big promises of their Contract with America. Two weeks ago
the House rejected term limits, and now the balanced budget
amendment seems doomed." Cochran failed to mention that both
Senators had voted for a similar amendment when they were in
the House.

Deng Heap

People might not expect the death of a communist dictator to
bring tributes. But on the February 19 Nightline, Ted Koppel
lauded Deng Xiaoping as the Great Normalizer following Mao's
murderous reign: "Tens of million of Chinese lives were ruined by that.
Deng Xiaoping's legacy by contrast is stability. Yes, he
ordered the army to crush the student movement in Tiananmen
Square in 1989, and yes, dissidents have been ruthlessly
repressed throughout China. But the Chinese people have endured
so much worse over the past 40 years that Deng is likely to go
down in history as the great normalizer, which may prove to be
of more lasting value to the most populous country in the
world than all the rest of it."

In the March 3 Time, Senior Editor Howard Chua-Eoan and
Senior Writer James Walsh were juggling the "greatness" of the
two mass murderers: "And finally, there was the most troublesome
shadow of all, Mao Zedong, Deng's friend and foe, his rival for the
soul of a country so ancient it has had a the misfortune both
to forget its history many times over and over and to repeat it
again and again. Only history will decide who was the
greater."

To Newsweek's Bill Powell, the killings in Tiananmen Square
weren't the negative for the people of China, capitalism was:
"For all of China's economic success, much of the vast country
is still either desperately poor or suffering from the excesses
of runaway capitalism or both."

McNamara didn't try to disprove Rather's contention that
global warming is behind the harsh weather in the Great Plains.
Back on the August 1 Evening News anchor Paula Zahn had
ominously intoned: "The new, landmark welfare overhaul President Clinton
promised to sign won't be law for a while yet, but They got
two, but Johnson of South Dakota decided to vote against it,
citing concerns about the threat to Social Security trust fund.
That left Torricelli. And to keep him from joining the
Republicans, President Clinton promised last night to establish
a special commission to study his budget concerns."

It was the same story in the print media. USA Today
"Politics" columnist Walter Shapiro painted Torricelli and
Johnson as heroes. Shapiro wrote that Torricelli has been portrayed as a
"poll-directed, publicity-driven modern politician," but "Here
was Torricelli defying such facile media labels with an
unpopular vote against a gaudily wrapped package of
constitutional mischief." He concluded: "Two freshmen Senators,
so different in style and temperament, deserve plaudits for
sticking their necks out to block a constitutional calamity.
Despite my cynical doubts, sometimes the system works."During
the Whitewater hearings in the summer of 1995, Schieffer
remarked on CBS Sunday Morning that for his fourteen thousandth vote,
Senator Robert Byrd "made a little speech and he said, you know
the one thing that I regret about Washington these days is how
mean-spirited and partisan it has become. This has always been a
very partisan place, but I must say, I agree with Senator
Byrd. I think somehow there's a new mean-spiritedness in our
politics and I think Washington was a lot better place when
people were a little more amicable in how they conducted their
business."Guilty verdicts in the trials of Jim and Susan
McDougal, former business partners of President Clinton, and Arkansas
governor, Jim Guy Tucker A federal judge in Little Rock threw out
Starr's indictment of Arkansas' Democratic governor, Jim Guy
Tucker, on fraud charges.This is the age of negative
advertising, this is a time when members of Congress really
don't even like each other very much anymore.

Revolving
Door: Clinton's Slumber Party

The names of several media executives were sprinkled among
the 831 names made public of overnight White House guests in
Clinton's first term: CNN founder Ted Turner, CBS Entertainment
President Leslie Moonves, and Rick Kaplan, a long-time ABC
News executive recently in charge of specials in ABC's entertainment
division. New-ly ensconced ABC News President David Westin is
bringing Kaplan back to the news division.

Moonves maxed out to the Clinton-Gore campaign, contrubuting
$1,000. He pitched in another $5,000 to the Democratic
National Committee last year, Washington Post reporter Howard
Kurtz relayed February 27.

Kurtz noted that Kaplan was the Executive Producer of World
News Tonight when he "stayed at the White House with his wife
in the summer of 1993." So, is there anything wrong with
accepting an invitation from Clinton, whom Kaplan calls a longtime
"friend"? Not as long as you keep it secret, Kaplan suggested in the
March 3 Electronic Media: "It's nobody's business." Kurtz
summarized Kaplan's view: "Kaplan said his visit did not create
an appearance problem because it was never made public until
now. He said his ties to Clinton had no impact on his work." He
assured Kurtz: "The idea that you could suddenly decide to
gild the lily or twist the news, it's a non-starter."

Kaplan is more than just a one-night guest. While Executive
Producer of Prime Time Live in 1992 he provided Clinton
campaign strategy when the Gennifer Flowers story broke.
"Clinton called Kaplan for advice," Los Angeles Times reporter Tom
Rosenstiel recounted in his campaign book Strange Bedfellows. On the
way to the airport, Clinton made another call to Kaplan and
the "night ended for Kaplan at 4am, when Clinton called one
last time." Two months later as Clinton's campaign floundered
in New York, aides suggested an appearance on the Don Imus
show. "The appearance was clinched," CNN producer Matthew Saal
recalled in the January 1993 Washington Monthly, "when Rick
Kaplan...called the radio show host to see if he could get the
pair together. The answer was yes."

ABC Morning, Clinton Night

The March 3 U.S. News & World Report carried a story on
Clinton's fundraising illustrated by a two-page photo of
Clinton addressing a February 18 Democratic Senatorial Campaign
Committee fundraiser in New York City. Attendees paid "either $10,000
in direct contributions or $25,000 in soft money," The
Washington Timesreported. C-SPAN's Brian Lamb made an
interesting discovery while looking closely at the photo: the
name tag of one man read "Arthur Miller." He's Good Morning
America's legal editor.

Disney's Democrat

Late February stories on discontent among Walt Disney
Company stock holders revealed that a liberal Democratic
politician sits on the board of the company which owns ABC: former
Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell. The February 24 Wall Street
Journal reported that "Disney paid Mr. Mitchell $50,000 for his
consulting on international business matters in fiscal 1996.
His Washington law firm was paid an additional $122,764."
Mitchell, the only member of the board with overt political
links, must fit in well. Disney shoveled $1,063,050 in soft
money to Democrats in 1995-96, but just $296,450 to Republicans
according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Partial-Truth Abortion Coverage

Ron Fitzsimmons, director of the National Coalition of
Abortion Pro- viders, reignited the abortion debate February
26. He said he'd "lied through his teeth" when he insisted
partial-birth abortion was rare and used only on deformed fetuses. He
now admits up to 5,000 a year are done, many when baby and mother
are healthy.

That night, NBC's Tom Brokaw still claimed: "What
anti-abortionists call partial-birth abortions -- that's a provocative
and mostly inaccurate statement." On CBS, Dan Rather noted the
"deceitful twist" and said that in politics, "truth can be the
first casualty." Rather should know.

Between November 1, 1995 through the end of 1996, the
networks ran 97 stories (22 full stories, 75 anchor briefs) on the
partial-birth debate, tracing it through Congress, Clinton's veto,
and Congress's failure to override. Almost one-third (28)
contained disinformation.

The deceit started the morning before the bill passed the
House. Matt Lauer said on the November 1, 1995 Today it would ban
one "rare abortion procedure." That night, Tom Brokaw claimed it
would make the "little-used late term procedure" a felony.
Lauer claimed the procedure was "rare" or "little-used" five
times in thirteen stories between November 1 and December 8,
1995.

On March 28, 1996 the day after House passage, CBS This
Morninganchor Troy Roberts stated "about 500" were done annually,
twice claiming it was "often chosen by mothers who discover serious
birth defects in the fetus."

On the September 26 CBS This Morning, Family Research
Council's Gary Bauer cited a Bergen Record report on how 1,500 such
abortions were performed annually in New Jersey alone, host Jane
Robelot retorted: "The statistics we hear from both sides of
the issue is more like 600 a year, nationwide. Where are your
statistics coming from?" Despite the New Jersey report, that
night Dan Rather returned to calling the procedure "rarely
used."

Although the networks treated Fitzsimmons' admission as a
revelation, they had the abortion doctors' own words years earlier.
Dr. Martin Haskell told the American Medical News in 1993 that 80
percent of partial birth abortions he performed were "purely
elective."

Only Ed Bradley (on the June 2, 1996 60 Minutes) mentioned
Haskell's comment, and only ABC's Dr. Tim Johnson (on the
September 19, 1996 World News Tonight) pointed out "no one knows how
many...are done each year...Nor does anyone know how many are done
on healthy fetuses versus those with severe birth defects."
Otherwise Rather and other network reporters spent 13 months
dutifully endorsing abortion advocates' claims.

But the following report by Lisa Myers went on to describe
one such procedure until the title "Partial Birth Abortion":
"The fetus is pulled partially out of the birth canal feet first, then
the skull is punctured and the brain suctioned out."

N.Y.,
L.A. Shootings: Tragedy...

...Or Big Opportunity?

In the wake of the Empire State Building and Los Angeles
bank robbery shootings, some networks were quick to pull the
trigger of blame on weak gun control laws.

CBS aired a total of 10 stories on the Empire State
shooting, three of which offered pro-gun control solutions. On the
February 24 CBS Evening News Dan Rather focused more blame on
Florida's gun control policy than the killer. Rather announced:
"He killed one person and wounded six others before taking his
own life, all with a semi-automatic handgun that could not
have been easier to buy. That, as correspondent John Roberts
reports tonight, is bringing new calls for tougher handgun
control laws."

Roberts reported how Ali Abu Kamal bought his weapon at a
Florida gun shop after using a hotel address and waiting three days
to pass a background check. Roberts noted: "Whether Kamal had
intended to shoot up the observation deck of the Empire State
building, or just take his own life, no one yet knows. But it
has prompted angry calls for a national handgun licensing
system."

CBS went to Dennis Henigan of Handgun Control Inc. and New
York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani for what were hardly "new" gun-control
quotes but offered no time to the gun-rights side. On the February
27 CBS This Morning, Mark McEwen interviewed brothers and
friends of wounded victim Matthew Gross and Rep. Carolyn
McCarthy (D-N.Y.), who pushed stricter laws. Gun rights groups
were left out.

NBC aired a total of 14 stories on the Empire State
shooting. Four times they aired a gun-control soundbite from Mayor
Giuliani, as well as one in-studio interview. Not once was Giuliani
balanced with an opposing guest or soundbite. On the March 2
Today, co-host Jodi Applegate interviewed the Gross brothers
who advocated gun control. Once again the pro-gun rights side
was ignored.

The LA firefight brought reruns. On the March 1 CBS Evening
NewsPaula Zahn introduced John Blackstone's story: "And in Los
Angeles today the sound of yesterday's gun fire has been replaced with
volleys of praise for the police and more calls for gun
control." Blackstone echoed Zahn: "From Los Angeles to
Washington, the shootout has raised new calls for a ban on
assault weapons."

Focusing on Freeloaders

Is everyone trying to get something for nothing? In a
February 24 ABC News special Freeloaders: The People Who Want and Get
Something for Nothing, reporter John Stossel put people to the
test.

Stossel showed how panhandlers who say they'll work for food
really won't. But he also highlighted those at the top of
society. He opened a segment on taxpayer-paid stadiums: "Wouldn't you
like to have your very own stadium without having to pay the $150
million or so that it costs? Well, sorry, you're probably not
rich enough to get a gift like that. It's reserved for the
multimillionaires who own athletic teams. You poorer people,
however, you do get the right to pay for it." Stossel
confronted Jerry Reinsdorf, owner of the Chicago Bulls and
White Sox:

"You're a freeloader. You're taking money from poor taxpayers to make you, a rich guy, richer."

He then examined corporate freeloaders: "But America's
biggest freeloaders aren't street people or poor people who collect
welfare. No, the big freeloaders are rich people -- people well
connected enough to use the power of government to freeload."
Stossel profiled the biggest of them all, Dwayne Andreas,
chairman of Archer Daniels Midland. Stossel looked at special
deals that benefit ADM -- sugar price fixing and the ethanol
tax break. "What does sugar cost? Today's Wall Street Journal
says the world price is about 11 cents per pound. But American
producers are not permitted to pay the world price. Here, if
say, Coke or Pepsi want to buy sugar for their soda they have
to pay 22 cents a pound. That's the government-required price. It's kept
artificially high to protect sugar growers. As a result, these
companies...pay 18 cents a pound to use corn sweetener
instead, and ADM makes corn sweetener. As long as sugar stays
expensive, ADM makes a killing....This also means that American
consumers pay billions more to buy things that have sugar in
them."

Repetitive Stress on CBS

If you think you hear the same phrases over and over again on CBS you aren't imagining it. Two trends:
First, since the GOP took control of Congress, Bob Schieffer has been
shocked at the political divisions on Capitol Hill. Again and
again he termed it the worst ever.

Before a congressional vote on Medicare reform, Schieffer
complained on the October 18, 1995 CBS Evening News: "After
months of some of the bitterest partisan fighting that anybody can
remember around here, the House is set to vote tomorrow on the
Republican plan to overhaul Medicare." During the coverage leading
up to President Clinton's 1996 State of the Union address,
Schieffer insisted that "this is the most divided Congress that
we've had in many years around here...It's the most partisan
session of Congress we've seen in a long time."

Expounding on the investigations surrounding Whitewater on
the June 18, 1996 Evening News, Schieffer suggested that "this
probe was something of a milestone: the first major congressional
investigation, in recent memory, where Republicans and Democrats
could agree on nothing, a sign of how partisan the whole thing
has become."

This year, Schieffer commented on the January 12 Sunday
Morningabout the battle over the Newt Gingrich ethics flap: "I
have never seen the partisanship running as high as it was. We've had
just a complete meltdown in the House."

Second, Schieffer may be stuck on divisiveness, but Dan
Rather has a fetish about identifying Ken Starr as a "Republican."
He has applied the term to the Whitewater Independent Counsel 27
times in the past two and a half years. It started right after
Starr was named: "There is growing controversy tonight about
whether the newly named Independent Counsel in the Whitewater
case is independent or a Republican partisan allied with a
get-Clinton movement," Rather asserted on August 9, 1994. He
chimed in again on September 5, 1995: "A legal setback late
today for Kenneth Starr, the Republican independent counsel in
the Whitewater case." When Starr gained convictions on May 28, 1996,
Rather didn't let up: "The Republican Whitewater special
prosecutor, Kenneth Starr, won a big one today. "

On February 21, Rather once again applied his favorite
label: "The Republican special prosecutor in the Whitewater case
announced a sudden change in plans this afternoon. Kenneth Starr
reversed orbit. He cancelled plans to quit and take another job in
California."

Janet Cooke Award: Martha Makes Nice, Not News

Who's Shooting the Messenger Now?

The White House insists: it doesn't matter whether a story
is true or false, only who's telling it. On January 6, Wall
Street Journal editorial writer Micah Morrison revealed the White
House counsel's office report "Communication Stream of Conspiracy
Commerce," a 331-page packet of photocopied articles and media
food-chain theorizing.

Prepared at taxpayer expense in 1995, White House aides
constructed an elaborate conspiracy theory of right-wing
operatives landing anti-Clinton stories in the mainstream
press. Clinton aides hoped to shame fellow liberals in the
press, arguing that seeking to demystify White House scandals
is to serve as a tool of the "far right."

None of the White House reporters handed the packet in 1995 noted it
publicly. While the Washington Times and Washington
Postfollowed up the Journal with front-page articles, the
networks ignored the packet story. Perhaps since the packet was
mostly reproductions of articles and transcripts from sources
like The New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly, and CBS's 60
Minutes, it seemed too close to home to be scandalous. The
February 23 New York Times Magazine echoed the White House approach in a
cover story entitled "Clinton Crazy." For focusing on the
personal quirks of anti-Clinton "crazies" and "fanatics" rather
than investigating the merits of any one allegation, the Times
earned the Janet Cooke Award.

The cover announced "The Clinton Haters," with the subhead: "No
President has been put at the center of more conspiracy theories,
nor been the object of more virulent accusations. What is it
about Bill Clinton -- and the nation he leads?" Philip Weiss, a
self-described "liberal Democrat" novelist who freelances for
the Times, made no attempt to prove that thesis, in the face of
charges that Lyndon Johnson ordered the death of John Kennedy,
or that Ronald Reagan postponed the return of the Iranian
hostages, or sat by as his CIA sold crack to California school
children.

The article began by asserting: "They accuse him of drug smuggling,
covering up the murders of some and ordering the murders of
others. They build Web sites, peddle videos, blanket talk
radio. They may have something to say -- but it's more about
America than about its President." Weiss focused on the scandal
promoters instead of the scandals, stitching a patchwork of
character studies, an answer to the question "what makes the
crazies tick?"

Weiss touched on many different scandal stories from Arkansas,
including the deaths of Vincent Foster, former Clinton bodyguard Gary
Parks, the wife of state trooper Danny Ferguson, and teenager
Kevin Ives. In some instances, Weiss appeared sympathetic, as
in the Ives case: "Here one can glimpse how a legitimate
question gets spun into a conspiracy." But none of these
stories merited more than a few paragraphs, giving the reader
no grasp of why these stories are worth following.

Was this objective? Weiss told MediaWatch: "No, it's highly
narrative, it has a very subjective component. I'm a very subjective
writer." He added: "The Times was far less interested in these
stories than in the personalities...they were not interested in
the substantive issues." Weiss declared victory just getting
the stories mentioned: "The Times is a very conservative
institution. Whatever its ideological bearings, its sensibility
makes it very reluctant to publish sexual allegations against
Clinton. Here were a set of stories that had never gotten in
the Times, and I felt a sense of achievement in getting these
stories in there, without discrediting them."

But Weiss blurred together serious, truthful journalism and
unsubtantiated accusations into one indistinguishable mass of "crazy"
activity. Larry Nichols, a disgruntled former Arkansas state
official, and Pat Matrisciana, producer of unreliable videos
like The Clinton Chronicles, were lumped in with investigative
reporter Chris Ruddy and the Wall Street Journal editorial
page: "The number of influential Clinton crazies is probably no
more than a hundred, but their audience is in the tens of
millions. The percolation of questions about the Foster case
from Web sites to newsletters to talk radio to newspapers like
The New York Post and The Wall Street Journal motivated the
White House counsel's office to draft its report on
conspiracies just before the Senate Whitewater hearings in the summer of
1995."

Weiss continued: "On a central point the Clinton administration and
the Clinton haters are in perfect agreement: because of new
forms of communication -- talk radio, newsletters, the
Internet, mail-order videos -- a significant portion of the
population has developed an understanding of Bill Clinton as a
debased, even criminal politician." Later in his piece, Weiss
added: "I wasn't faring all that better with other Clinton
crazies. The Wall Street Journal attacked me twice on its
editorial page as a White House dupe." When asked about calling the
Journal editorial page "crazies," Weiss replied: "I think they're
assholes, and they're paranoid."

How did Weiss expect his article, laced with words like "crazies,"
"fanatics," and "haters," to create sympathy for the subjects?
Weiss protested to MediaWatch: "I was very careful to use the
word haters, but when someone compares Clinton to Hitler, that
level of virulence seems to justify it." But Foster buff Hugh
Sprunt, who Weiss found "very compelling," appeared on the
cover over the words "The Clinton Haters." Weiss replied: "I
didn't write the headlines." As for the 11 uses of "crazies,"
Weiss said: "I really wanted to convey these stories in what I
felt was a sympathetic light. At the same time, I would feel the need,
like the Timesfelt, to distance myself from these people. So I
chose this word.

Friends argued that it served to discredit every one of these people."

The New York Times has reserved its classifications of emotional
instability for figures on the right. A Nexis search finds no use
in the last 20 years for the terms "Reagan haters," "Reagan
crazies," "left-wing attack machine," or "October Surprise
fanatics." But it was the Times who had former Carter official
Gary Sick jump-start the October Surprise conspiracy on its
op-ed page in 1991; and used its front page to publicize Kitty
Kelley's book Nancy Reagan, printing wild rumors about the
First Lady's sex life; and publicized the lawsuit by convicted
bomber Brett Kimberlin claiming he was mistreated by prison
officials because he (falsely) told reporters he sold drugs to Dan
Quayle. They were deemed important sources with important stories to
tell, not tragic symptoms of a sick America.

Weiss recommended a look at his March 17 article in The New York
Observer newspaper. He had a very different take, laying out the
forensic mysteries of the Foster death, and praising Ruddy's and
Sprunt's spadework. He decried the lack of Foster coverage,
saying "No one in the media can think for himself or herself."
Apparently, Weiss only fails to think for himself on the
Clinton scandals when the Times is paying the bill.

All of Weiss's proclaimed sympathy with his subjects, the Times
failed to provide the public with a useful investigation. But it did
provide a welcome addition to the White House spin
controllers' packet of Xeroxed hit pieces.

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